Dance review: Ballet BC adeptly shifts moods from dark eco horror to playful rebellion against conformity at HORIZON/S
Dancers move eerily in Jiří Pokorný’s A Night Walker, while Shay Kuebler’s First/Last has sly fun with suit jackets
Ballet BC dancers in Jiří Pokorný’s A Night Walker. Photo by Michael Slobodian
Ballet BC presents HORIZON/S at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre until March 18
IF THERE’S ONE genre that seldom receives stage time in dance pieces, it’s horror. But in Czech choreographer Jiří Pokorný’s premiere of A Night Walker, innovative sound and lighting design play beautifully with technical movement to craft a fixating storyline of environmental awareness that left the audience’s skin crawling.
The scene in Ballet BC’s HORIZON/S program is set straight away: curtains open onto a pitch-black stage, a note of eerie string music piercing the air. Stage left, a light flicks on—it’s a headlamp worn by a dancer dressed in all black. As they look frantically from side to side, that small beam illuminates dancers crawling across the floor, spider-like: twisting and buckling, scurrying from the light, met by murmurs of intrigue from the audience.
Unease carries throughout the piece in a way that tingles the spine, partly because of a captivating custom musical composition by Davidson Jaconello. At one point the score is infested with haunting sound effects: squelching, crackling noises accompany a dancer who contorts as if their bones are breaking, limbs bent at jarring angles and muscles rippling.
The ominous tone culminates with a massive backlit shadow appearing behind a screen upstage, heinous and humanoid. A moment later we see it’s dancer Vivian Ruiz dressed in white with antlers on her head: an angelic deer of sorts, cutting through the imagery of dark horror, floating across the stage in almost an ethereal way.
With Alan Brodie’s stunning lighting design enhancing the tone, the deer is entrancing—skittish and lilting when others are around, then calm, lithe, and confident when she’s alone.
Near the end of the piece we start to realize the horrific atmosphere is a reflection on our environment and its slow but steady state of decomposition: a dancer collapses to the floor sluggishly, and the deer’s antlers are removed, spiralling her into a directionless lethargy.
Pokorný’s work is strikingly thoughtful, and touches one of the most pressing issues of our time in an uncharted way—perhaps even well enough to frighten audiences into action.
Dancers suit up Shay Kuebler’s First/Last. Photo by Michael Slobodian
In Vancouver-based choreographer Shay Kuebler’s First/Last, the tone shifts away from nature into a setting more evocative of the corporate world. Dancers move around the stage in a grid with military-like precision, outfitted in neutral pants and blazers, to a guitar soundtrack composed and performed by Montreal-based post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
While they walk, every so often a dancer moves out of line: the flick of an arm, the turn of a head, the kick of a leg. Tension builds to the point that the dancers fling their blazers off simultaneously, in a revolt against structure reminiscent of Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16.
The blazers are pulled offstage, and a minute later Patrick Kilbane emerges with a monstrous, trailing pile of them heaped around him—a striking metaphor for the burden of conformity.
The piece also highlights the importance of connection and communication: a duo of dancers is seen covering each other’s mouths, pointing fingers, and running in circles—unable to resolve their altercation—until finally they come to a halt with a quiet hug.
HORIZON/S’ third work, a welcome remount of Adi Salant’s WHICH/ONE, is performed to a lively clip of audio pulled from the 1985 film A Chorus Line, in which dancers are auditioning for a role. The piece outlines the realities of cutthroat competition, interjecting humour (kissy lips, a tongue stuck out, sassy poses), and worry (hands covering eyes, arguments, supportive hugs).
Throughout three cutting-edge works that speak on vastly different aspects of life, the ever-versatile dancers of Ballet BC never fade from their striking technique—making HORIZON/S a memorable, polished show.
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